Last week, Indian e-commerce giant Flipkart announced it was hiring an additional 70,000 supply chain workers ahead of its Big Billion Days event, which serves as the unofficial start of the busy shopping period during the nation’s festive season. With steep discounts on smartphones, televisions, furniture and apparel, Big Billion Days attracts a huge number of online shoppers. Last year, Flipkart sold a television every second and 500 beauty products every minute, and it is estimated to have generated around $1.86 billion in gross merchandise value, according to Bengaluru-based consultancy Redseer.Experts are predicting an even bigger event this year, since India, like other markets around the world, experienced an e-commerce boom while stores were closed due to Covid-19. “We expect this year’s event will register a year-on-year growth as always,” Vijay Bhupathiraju, a senior analyst at Global Data based in Hyderabad, told Inside Retail.“Moreover, the growing number of online shoppers amid the Covid-19 pandemic, and revenge buying will also offer an additional boost to the sale this year.”Revenge buying is the idea that consumers will overcompensate for the purchases they could not make during store closures by spending more than they usually would once they are open. Dr Seshan Ramaswami, an associate professor of marketing education at Singapore Management University, also believes the recent increase in online shoppers will give the sale “an extra edge” this year, but he expects Covid-19 will impact the event in other, less positive, ways.“The economy is still in a deep slump, there have been severe job losses, and there is a general mood of uncertainty, exacerbated by border clashes with China, so these are not ordinary times, and big ticket items may not sell as well,” he told Inside Retail. “But for festival-related clothing and accessories, decorations and lower end smartphones and laptops, we could expect a big surge in sales.”Teaming up to tackle last-mile deliveryFlipkart’s plan to hire 70,000 additional supply chain workers, including delivery executives, pickers, packers and sorters, reflects its own confidence ahead of the event. “As a front runner in e-commerce, our training and investment in the workforce is widely recognised, and contributes to skill development and enhances employability. By generating employment and enabling our sellers to scale their businesses during this time, we’re doing our part to drive growth in the industry and the economy,” Amitesh Jha, Flipkart’s senior vice president for Ekart and Marketplace, said of the move. Flipkart also plans to onboard more than 50,000 kiranas, or corner stores, to assist with last-mile delivery. This is a common and effective strategy for online retailers to ensure delivery in India, according to GlobalData’s Bhupathiraju. “Last-mile delivery has always been a major problem faced by e-commerce players in India, especially in towns and villages. Whenever a customer orders a product from a rural or remote area, the e-commerce companies find it difficult to maintain the same efficiency and delivery speed as in urban areas due to the lack of proper infrastructure and difficulty in finding addresses,” he explained. “To solve this problem, many e-commerce players have launched services like self pick-up from delivery centres. Furthermore, retailers such as Flipkart, Amazon and Jio Mart are partnering with local kirana stores to offer last-mile deliveries or authorised buy zones.”But will it be enough, given the strain last-mile delivery networks are already under due to the Covid-fueled rise in online shopping? “Enough bodies to throw at the problem”APAC logistics expert Rob Hango-Zada told Inside Retail that demand surges created by sales events are growing in severity.“Basically as e-commerce sales account for a greater percentage of total retail sales, even the smallest increases in sales volume will mean a dramatic impact on existing fulfilment and delivery capacity being easily exhausted and impacting delivery times to customers,” he said. “The only way to stop this from happening today is to hire ahead of the wave and ensure you have enough bodies to throw at the problem. This won’t be sustainable long-term.”As the director of Shippit, a logistics company with operations in Australia, Singapore and Malaysia, Hango-Zada said he is still noticing ‘delivered on time’ rates of around 60 per cent across some carriers, meaning 40 per cent of parcels are delivered late. But industry experts paint a different picture of the last-mile delivery landscape in India. “With the large workforce available, and fairly high unemployment numbers given the slowing down of the Indian economy pre-Covid, it is not difficult to find workers in the logistics supply chain – from packers to warehouse workers, to delivery persons,” Ramaswami said. And according to Bhupathiraju, customer orders are largely back to being delivered on time.